Sony China press event set for 14 January 2014; Xperia Z1 mini to be unveiled

Sony will be out in force at next week’s CES 2014 trade show in Las Vegas, showcasing all of its new wares across its vast portfolio of televisions, cameras, laptops and of course, mobile products.

It is increasingly looking like that the Xperia Z1 mini is a dead cert for a global release as Sony China has revealed it is due to hold a press conference the week after CES on 14 January 2014, with strong hints that the Xperia Z1 mini will be the star of the show.

The teaser image has four colours (yellow, black, white and pink), which are the four colours that the Japanese version of the Xperia Z1 mini, the Xperia Z1 f, released in Japan at the end of last year. Interestingly, if you look at the official press images of the Xperia Z1 f below, you’ll notice that they also come in the same colour order as the Sony China invite.

If the main tease for Sony China’s invite surrounds the Xperia Z1 mini, then it makes us think that we will not see any higher specced phone at CES. This would be in line with Sony’s recent comments that it sees the Xperia Z1 as being the main flagship as we move into 2014. This could set us up for a major new Xperia reveal at MWC in February.

We’ll have to wait and see of course, but we wouldn’t be building up any hopes for any big new flagship reveals next week. Sony’s main press event will take place on Monday 6 January 2014 at 17.00 in Las Vegas. To find out the time of Sony’s CES 2014 press conference in your time zone click here.

The Xperia Z1 mini will share most of the same hardware of the Xperia Z1 including the Snapdragon 800 chipset, 20.7MP camera, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and IP55/IP58 dust and water resistance. It differs by offering a smaller 4.3-inch 720p display, 2300mAh embedded battery, a chassis measuring 65 mm × 127mm × 9.4mm and weighs 140g.